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Aug 23, 2014

When I was in high school and college it was customary to closet gay writers. The professor might have known, but it was assumed unseemly (at best) to tell a class full of "impressionable youth" that gay people exist So Oscar Wilde was arrested on "scandalous charges," and Shakespeare's rhapsodies over the "fair youth" of the Sonnets was a "poetic convention of the day."

And Walt Whitman (1819-1892), whose Leaves of Grass includes exceptionally open lines like "we boys together clinging, one the other never leaving"?

"Oh...um...he's talking about his brother."

In my junior year, my American Renaissance professor, Dr. Ames, brought Whitman a little farther out of the closet: "He loved women -- he scattered illegitimate children up and down the Eastern Seaboard -- but he also had a bit of the fruit in him."

Thirty years later, Walt Whitman the "good gay poet," and his magnum opus, Leaves of Grass, are still usually closeted by English professors. I often give my students this list of famous writers, and ask them to guess which ones were gay or bisexual:

Answers: #1, #3, #4, #5, #7, #10.
They're always the most surprised to find out that Whitman was gay, and Dickens was not.

So let's make things clear: Walt Whitman, the greatest poet in American history, was definitely, undeniably gay.

There is no evidence that he had any erotic interest in women: the illegitimate children story was a screen, made up during the 1920s to "save" the poet's image.

Before there was a vocabulary for same-sex desire, Whitman was all about inventing one:
"the manly love of comrades" and "adhesive friendships."

Near the end of his life, when the word "homosexual" was coined, and same-sex desire defined as a symptom of a dangerous psychosis, he backtracked a bit, claiming that he meant only spiritual comrades, nothing physical.

But he had many "physical" comrades through his life, and his journals describes cruising in detail. He picked up men on streetcars, at the docks, in the park.

Jerry Taylor, slept with me last night, heavenly.

Traverce Hedgeman, young, slight, fair, feminine, conductor.

Howard Atkinson, tall, sandy, country-fied.

Thin, smooth, and slightly feminine were his favorite traits. In West Hollywood, we called them Cute Young Things.

His long-term lover, Peter Doyle, went against type.

He also spent time with early gay rights pioneer Edward Carpenter (1844-1929), and, perhaps, artist Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), who painted a famous portrait of him, and may have photographed him nude.

Labeled only "Old Man, Seven Photographs," they are today housed in the Getty Museum,

I hate movies about war -- actually, I'm not a fan of movies about people dying in general -- so I'm not going to see Field of Lost Shoes (2014). But if you have the stomach for it, it looks like there will be some gay subtexts.

It's based on a true story of the Civil War: In May 1864, as Union troops led by General Ulysses Grant pushed into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, the Confederacy scrambled for a final defense.

274 teenage cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were called into service, and marched 80 miles to New Market. They never expected to fight. But General Breckenridge put them on the front line, where 47 were wounded and 10 were killed (mostly freshmen).

Several of the main cast members play cadets on the casualty list, including Zach Roering (Vampire Diaries), Parker Croft (Once Upon a Time), and Max Lloyd Jones (The Sandlot 2). I assume that Nolan Gould (Modern Family), who plays a composite character, is also a goner.

That basically leaves Luke Benward (How to Eat Fried Worms) still alive at the end.

But this is a good lineup of hunky actors, who apparently deliver a number of shirtless scenes.

I'm sure there won't be any gay characters -- Hollywood thinks that there were no gay people in the past -- but several of the actors, including Nolan Gould, Zach Roering, and Parker Croft, have played gay characters or performed in gay-positive venues.

And there's bound to be significant gay subtexts in the buddy-bonding among the doomed cadets.

Aug 21, 2014

When I was growing up in Rock Island, Chicago was the nearest big city, a three hour's drive across the prairie, so we went quite often. My Spanish class drove there to see La Casa de Bernarda Alba, the Garcia Lorca play. My parents took me to the Museum of Science and Industry for my birthday trip one year. In college I drove out for my brief modeling career, and later to apply for jobs on Michigan Avenue. After Los Angeles, it's the city where I feel most at home.

And, surprising for the Midwest, there's a lot of beefcake art. Here are the top 10 public penises:

1. The Goethe Memorial in Lincoln Park, showing a muscular, naked poet with an eagle on his knee. Almost makes you want to read Faust. There's also a Goethe-Institut with German classes, art exhibitions, and theater performances.

2.-3. The Bowman and the Spearman, two naked Indians guarding the entrance to Congress Plaza. Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović didn't draw upon Native American cultures; he envisioned neoclassical Graeco-Roman muscles.

4. Speaking of Native Americans, the naked "Signal of Peace" stands in Lincoln Park. It's part of a four-statue series called "Epic of the Indian" by gay sculptor Cyrus Edwin Dallin (who, oddly enough, also sculpted the statue of Moroni atop the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City).

5. John Boyle's The Alarm, a memorial to the Ottawa Indians, is also in Lincoln Park. The muscular "brave" stands at attention with a woman at his feet, a precursor to Boris Vallejo's depictions of Conan with his legs being hugged by naked ladies.

Aug 20, 2014

I spent the summer of 1999 in Paris, ostensibly researching French social thought, but really just...well, being in Paris. I had a small but cozy apartment on the Rue de Plâtre, in the heart of Le Marais, the gay neighborhood, about a 10 minute walk from Notre Dame. Every day I took the metro to the National Library to do research for a few hours. In the afternoon I went to the Luxembourg Gardens or the Musée d'Orsay or the Louvre; and in the evenings, Gay Paris.

There was only one problem: My apartment looked down on a store called Edemonium, which sold Goth- and -demon themed clothing, jewelry, human skulls, and statues of Satan. I'm interested in the paranormal, but this was too much. It freaked me out. I kept the blinds closed at night, but the lurid red light still filtered into my bedroom.

My friend Andre didn't like it, either (not the same Andre as in The Worst Date in Florida History). He was a Long Island grad student in history,originally from Belgium, in his 30s, short, husky, sort of muscular.

He claimed to be straight but celibate: he lived in a "Traditional Catholic" spiritual community with some other "straight but celibate" guys who disapproved of Pope John Paul and thought that only Latin Masses were valid. But he supported female priests, birth control, and gay rights.

A few days after I got back from Paris, Andre and I had lunch on campus. I told him about Edemonium, and he said "That figures. I was wondering why you were being oppressed by a demon."

"Possessed?"

"Not possessed. He's oppressing you, sort of piggy-backing. It's no big deal -- happens to a lot of people. Have you felt tired and depressed lately?"

"Well, yeah, but I just had to leave Paris. Who wouldn't be depressed?"

"Spells of bad luck?"

"Well, now that you mention it."

"Demon oppression. Come out to the Cloisters tonight, and we'll take care of it for you."

I frowned. "This isn't some sort of ex-gay thing, is it?"

"Oh, no, not at all. Demons are equal-opportunity oppressors."

So that evening after class Andre drove me, plus Yuri and Jaan for gay support, to "The Cloisters," which turned out to be a three-bedroom house in Sayville. Andre introduced us as his "gay friends" to his four "straight but celibate" housemates, plus a potential member named Barry, a short, blondish guy in his 20s with a round Eastern European face.

The ceremony wasn't what I expected from The Exorcist. Andre read some Bible passages in Latin, then drew a cross on my forehead with sacred oil, and we all recited the Lord's Prayer. I actually felt better, more energetic. Time to break for soda and cookies.

But then Barry started laughing, a weird maniacal laugh like the Joker on Batman. "West Hollywood! West Hollywood! West Hollywood!" he grunted. "Corner of Santa Monica and San Vicente."

Barry -- or the demon -- switched to Flemish: " Ik denk dat allemaal zijn homos! Ben je een man, of een meisje?" I think you're all homos. Are you a boy or a girl?"
"The power of Christ compels you..."

"Put down that Bible, homo!" Barry began to sashay around the room like a drag queen. "Ma tahan olla naine" he sang, to the tune of "Don't Cry for Me, Argentina." "Mul on väike vorst!" I want to be a woman, I have a tiny sausage (Estonian).

What version of the Bible was Andre reading from?""Bog chochet , stoby ubit vas vesekh," Barry said, this time in a mournful plaint. God wants to kill you (Russian).
"Do not call something unclean that God has made clean!"

Barry's head slumped against his chest, as if he was asleep. A moment later, he looked up. "What happened?"

"Are you gay?" Andre asked, coming right to the point.

Barry blanched. "Um...well, yeah, I guess. I should have told you before, but I thought you wouldn't let me into the community"

Andre put his hand on his shoulder. "That's why you were open to possession -- your fear. But it's ok now. We don't care about trivial things like sexual orientation here."

I still don't know what happened that night. Was there really a demon? If not, how could Barry speak Latin, French, Flemish, Russian, Estonian, and German? They were all languages that someone in the room could understand.

But it's kind of nice to know that demons -- emissaries of Satan -- are homophobic.

Aug 19, 2014

We're in the midst of a Malcolm in the Middle marathon, and I must admit that the dysfunctional family sitcom (2000-2006) was not particularly gay-positive. There were some gay references here and there; Francis, the bad boy sent to military school, pretends to be gay to get girls; Reese tells a girl "Sorry, I'm gay" to dissuade her. But overall, this was an aggressively heterosexist world.

2. Gifted child Malcolm (Frankie Muniz) was a little scrawny, but a few years later, in Extreme Movie, he displayed biceps and a bulge while being tormented by a S&M dominatrix.

3. Francis (Christopher Masterson) had a respectable physique which he displayed a few times.

4. He was in military school, surrounded by muscular cadets, such as Eric (Eric Nenninger, top photo)

5. Drew (Drew Powell, left)

6. And Stanley (Karim Prince), who didn't own a shirt.

7. Dewey, the youngest boy, had a never-ending procession of weirdo boy friends, some of whom grew up to become teen hunks, like Chad (Cameron Monaghan), star of Shameless.

8. But the real revelation was in Frankie's gifted-student classmates, the Krelboynes. According to Hollywood myth, high intelligence goes hand-in-hand with social phobia, lack of fashion sense, glasses, buck teeth, and multiple allergies, so they were drawn as unattractive as possible. As if to make up for the stereotyping, they have blossomed.

Remember Lloyd, aka Evan Matthew Cohen? Unfortunately, he's retired from acting, but not from modeling. (Be careful -- there's another Mathew Cohen wandering around the internet, and Google Image Search may have mixed them up.)

9. Eraserhead, aka Will Jennings, is now a tall, imposing ginger giant.

10. And Stevie, Malcolm's wheezing, wheelchair-bound bff? Craig Lamar Traylor spent his childhood explaining to people that he wasn't really disabled. His acting career hasn't been doing too well, but he certainly presents a striking figure.

I tell people that I lived in West Hollywood for 13 years, but actually, it was a little over 10 years, from June 1985 to August 1995, and even that was broken up by a summer in Japan and semesters in Nashville and Turkey. Still, there was plenty of time for gay experiences. Here are my top 10 favorites:

Aug 17, 2014

During the late 1990s, there were three teen idols named Jackson vying for a place in the hearts of gay boys and heterosexual girls. All three had the wholesome, innocent quality that preteens and tweens find dreamy, and all three played in some movies with gay characters.Before you start making homophobic comments: I am not stating that they are personally gay, or that they personally played gay characters. I am merely stating that they appeared in movies or tv series which contained gay characters.

Distinguishing characteristics:not photographed shirtless very often; not particularly buffed or tanned, but still quite attractive. Still popular, star of the heterosexist paranormal sci-fi series Fringe. Strong gay ally. Appeared in the GLAAD Media Awards.

2. Jeremy Jackson (born 1980). Played on Baywatch (1991-1999) as Hobie, son of head lifeguard David Hasselhoff, plus:Ring of Darkness (2004): gay character.DTLA (2012): tv series about gay men.

When Gay Was Unspoken

Beefcake, male bonding, and gay symbolism in the movies, tv programs, books, toys, and comics of a Baby Boomer childhood. Some autobiographical stories and stories about beefcake around the world.

Note: Most posts are about how gay people can find meaning in homophobic or heterosexist texts. If you don't want to hear about that, stay away. No profanity, insults, anti-gay slurs, name-calling,or homophobia allowed. You will be blocked, and comments on the post will be disabled.